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HH. Chapter 20: Negro Education

Page 1

[CHAPTER 20]
[Page 1]
NEGRO EDUCATION
The Jesuits were the pioneers in Negro education in Louisiana. In 1726, when “the young French girls, …were in danger of being little better bred than the slaves,”1 Governor Bienville assigned the task of obtaining suitable instructors for them to Father Ignatius de Beaubois, the founder of Jesuit Missions in Louisiana.2 The priest journeyed to France during that same year, and was instrumental in arranging a contract between the Company of the Indies and the Order of the Ursulines of Rouen, in which the latter agreed to take charge of the hospital of the new colony, “succor the poor sick, and provide, at the same time, for the education of young girls.”
Negro slave labor played an important part in sustaining the educational system so humbly began, and which was to play a prominent role in early Negro education. When the Ursulines arrived in 1727, the colonial authorities--indiscriminately grouping the animate and inanimate together--turned over to them “The negroes, negresses, animals, furniture, beds, clothes and utensils destined to the use of the hospital,” and the nuns began to bend their efforts towards the tasks which lay ahead. In their contract with the Ursulines the Company of the Indies declared that a plantation was to be laid out in the lower part of the city for their use, and that “as soon as the said plantation will produce sufficiently to cover expenses…the said nuns will dispose of the revenue of the said plantation as solely affected to their maintenance and subsistence.” The plantation was to be stocked with Negroes from Africa, the contract further

The unpublished manuscript "The Negro in Louisiana" is a work begun by the Dillard (University) Project in 1942, an arm of the WPA's Federal Writer's Project. After the dissolution of the unit, Marcus Christian maintained and edited the document in hopes of eventual publication. It is reproduced here as an annotated transcript, with original typos, chapters, and paginations preserved.

[CHAPTER 20]
[Page 1]
NEGRO EDUCATION
The Jesuits were the pioneers in Negro education in Louisiana. In 1726, when “the young French girls, …were in danger of being little better bred than the slaves,”1 Governor Bienville assigned the task of obtaining suitable instructors for them to Father Ignatius de Beaubois, the founder of Jesuit Missions in Louisiana.2 The priest journeyed to France during that same year, and was instrumental in arranging a contract between the Company of the Indies and the Order of the Ursulines of Rouen, in which the latter agreed to take charge of the hospital of the new colony, “succor the poor sick, and provide, at the same time, for the education of young girls.”
Negro slave labor played an important part in sustaining the educational system so humbly began, and which was to play a prominent role in early Negro education. When the Ursulines arrived in 1727, the colonial authorities--indiscriminately grouping the animate and inanimate together--turned over to them “The negroes, negresses, animals, furniture, beds, clothes and utensils destined to the use of the hospital,” and the nuns began to bend their efforts towards the tasks which lay ahead. In their contract with the Ursulines the Company of the Indies declared that a plantation was to be laid out in the lower part of the city for their use, and that “as soon as the said plantation will produce sufficiently to cover expenses…the said nuns will dispose of the revenue of the said plantation as solely affected to their maintenance and subsistence.” The plantation was to be stocked with Negroes from Africa, the contract further